On Sunday 1 December, I, along with around 2600 of my closest friends, made the trip down to Victor Harbor to run in the Great Southern Runs Victor Harbor Half Marathon.
This event is huge! My first time running the half in 2022 (the less said about that sh!tshow, the better!), a total of 673 people finished across the 3 distances (21.1k, 10k and 5k), with 388 of those in the half marathon. Last year, that number grew to 1838, with 1145 in the half. This year, 1736 people finished the half, with 2594 finishers overall.
It wasn’t really on my radar for this year, as I felt like I had got my redemption last year. But then Beck and Kate decided to do it and of course I got the old FOMO and entered too!
Because of the huge increase in numbers last year, and in response to feedback, this year the 10k and 21.1k both started at 0700, so that was over 2400 people essentially starting at the same time. The idea was to avoid the faster 10k runners running into the slower 21.1k runners on the narrow part of the path. There were 5 start zones, with zone 1 being the fastest. I had been put into zone 1 by virtue of my estimated finish time which I think was 1:35 (much the same as the time I ran last year) – zone 1 was for anyone estimating a time up to 1:35. So I just scraped in there!
It was the same course as last year – a 2 lap course including 2 trips across the causeway to Granite Island.
I decided to try something new this time – nutrition! I was having coffee with Beck after our last Sunday run, and she mentioned she’d tried some new (Pure) gels, and they weren’t too bad. I had NEVER tried a gel before. In road races, I had only previously used Werther’s Original hard candy (in the very early days) and, in more recent marathons, mini protein balls. I don’t believe I had ever used any form of nutrition in a half marathon. I used to like doing ultra marathons because it is possible (and encouraged!) to eat real food! But everyone else seems to use gels, so what harm could it do? If anything, it could improve my performance, and at least it might give me a little energy boost! I decided at that moment that I would try gels for the half marathon. Beck gave me a lemon/lime one which I tried before my Thursday run (my last run before the half) and I didn’t feel like it really did anything for me, but we only ran 10km and normally you wouldn’t rely on gels for that sort of distance. I went and bought a few more (thanks, Black Friday sales!) and I thought I might try an orange one as well as the lemon/lime.
My preparation was pretty stock standard for me – easy running on Tuesday and Thursday, no caffeine after Wednesday, massage on Thursday (thanks Amanda!) and pizza for dinner on Saturday night!
(Pro tip – always order the biggest pizza. Future you will thank you for the leftovers when you get home after the race!)
I also had my work Christmas party on Friday night, a late night followed by an early morning which was probably not ideal, but I managed to get to bed before 2100 on Saturday night for the 0415 alarm so that wasn’t too bad! I was getting a ride with Kate who wanted to get there at 0600, so she was picking me up at 0445.
There was a bit of rain overnight and it started up again as we approached Victor Harbor – not ideal! But rain would be preferable to stinking hot, and worse, windy! We arrived around 0600 and managed to get what we thought was a pretty close park on Franklin Parade, but as we walked to the start area at Warland Reserve we realised that we could have got a whole lot closer, so Kate went and moved the car into what I would describe as a rock star park – pretty amazing considering how many people were there! (I think people see other people parking on the side of the road and they assume they won’t get any closer. Another pro tip – assuming you have plenty of time, always try to get closer – the further away parks will still be there if you can’t!)
While Kate was moving the car I thought I’d take the opportunity to beat the toilet queues at the public toilet block. Amazingly I did not have to queue at all – just walked right in! It was quite cold at the start so I was glad that I’d brought a jumper even though it was not at all cold when I left home. Then we caught up with Beck and her daughter Alice who had stayed the night in nearby Middleton, before I had my energy drink and a sneaky warmup. (My preferred energy drink, V Refresh Citrus Lemonade, appears to have been discontinued so I have been stockpiling it whenever I see it at a servo!) Then it was time for the first of my two gels – I decided to try the orange one and keep the lemon/lime one for around the halfway mark – the thinking being that if it tasted terrible I could wash it down with all of the water! It was actually not too bad – would have it again!
By this stage I had already put my bag in the bag drop area so I didn’t have my phone, and with all those people around I had no chance of finding Beck and Kate (especially as Kate was wearing all black and I didn’t know what colour top Beck was wearing) so I made my way to the start area. I was chatting with Micky who was aiming for sub-90 minutes so I made a mental note not to try to run with him – I feel like I should be capable of a sub-90 (my all-time PB being just under 1:32) but I’m not there yet! Then I saw Rob who is around my pace, but then realised he was doing the 10k and aiming for about 42 minutes. The same pace for a half would be under 1:29. So I was not going to run with him either!
Kate and Beck found me for a quick selfie and then headed back to one of the later start zones. (Kate asked me to write, for Future Kate’s benefit, that she needs to start in an earlier start zone next time!)
Other than potential congestion at the start from having so many runners starting at the same time, the other issue I could foresee was getting dragged out at too fast a pace. And that definitely happened! My first kilometre was 4:14 (bearing in mind that 1:35 half marathon pace is just under 4:30).
Because it was the same course last year, it is a pretty easy comparison. My 5k time last year was 22:15 and this year was 21:44 – a full 30 seconds faster, or 6 seconds per kilometre. Surely that wouldn’t come back to bite me later?
(Different course, but at the same stage in 2022 I was on about 23:22 and things just got worse from there!)
I remembered last year having a pretty strong headwind heading back towards Victor from The Bluff turnaround. It didn’t seem so bad this year. I certainly didn’t have anyone using me as a windbreak!
My hydration plan was to try to grab water at every drink station. I missed one early on, when I was a bit slow to reach for a cup, I tried to grab it from the very last volunteer on the station, and missed it, and absolutely was not going back! The only other one I missed was just before the second trip across the causeway, when I inadvertently grabbed an electrolyte drink (and as soon as I tasted it, promptly spat it out on the ground – not to my liking!)
Running across the causeway the first time, I was prepared with my gel (as you can see from the below photo) but not prepared to see a photographer (obviously!)
On the way back across the causeway, we were running on the bitumen side (when running out to the island, we ran on the spongy stuff the horses (for the horse drawn tram) walk on, and this was only wide enough for one way traffic). I did find myself getting a bit close to the spongy stuff and nearly tripping a few times!
The volunteers were all fantastic, and the marshals were particularly good at warning us about the tram tracks as we headed towards the causeway!
I had my gel around the 10km mark, knowing there was a drink station just after we got back off the island, and a bin in which to drop my empty gel packet, because I was not going to be one of those runners who drop their rubbish on the course! (I also brought a small zip lock bag to put it in, in case I was far from a bin at the time, and I could then shove it back in my pocket. Those things are sticky!)
My 10k time was around 43:45. I have since looked up my 10k race times. It has been a REALLY long time since I’ve done a 10k race (over 5 years) and my 10k race PB is 44:02. My fastest 10k according to Strava is 42:22 (during my half marathon PB at GSR’s McLaren Vale event this year).
I hope I remember to read this blog before I enter Victor next year because I’m totally doing the 10k – only one lap, and an almost certain 10k race PB!
I seem to recall my 12k time was around 52:50ish – marginally faster than last year’s 53:14, but definitely slowing a bit at this stage. I always like to look at my 12k time because next year I am intending to run a sub-50 12k!
There were a few times in the second lap where I consciously backed off the pace for a bit, because I knew I’d gone out too fast and if I tried to keep the intensity up, the end was not going to be pretty! (I had forgotten I’d done much the same thing last year!)
I was passed by, and then caught up with, a girl called Ash who was also trying gels for the first time and when I caught her, my second gel had just kicked in, and she’d just taken hers. While chatting I learned that it was her birthday – what a way to spend it! (She ended up finishing about 30 seconds ahead of me – after her gel kicked in she was gone and I never caught her!)
After the 12km mark I stopped looking at my watch, I was pretty sure I was not going to get a PB and I really didn’t want to know what my HR was (I knew it was much harder work than last year!) At least I knew it definitely was not going to be a PW!
Like last year, from 21km on my watch, to the finish line at 21.1km, was the longest 300m I think I’ve ever run! Pleasingly I did manage to run that last bit at 4:13 pace which was my fastest pace for the whole run. I couldn’t have sustained it for much more than 300m but it’s nice to know I still had enough left in the tank to push hard for a sub-1:35, much like I did at Adelaide this year (My time was officially 1:34:50 net, or 1:35:04 on the gun – around 10 seconds slower than last year. That’s nothing!)
Weather-wise it was definitely getting warm towards the end (the reason for the 0700 start – and I was grateful to be finished just after 0830 before it really heated up. The humidity was supposedly 88% – that is something we’re not used to in Adelaide but we had been running in 80% humidity all week so it was good to be somewhat acclimatised to it!
After changing out of my running shoes into thongs, and having the Coke that Past Jane had put in my drop bag for me (thanks again Past Jane!), I went for a complimentary post-run massage (the guy organising it told me that my guy was blind and asked if that was OK, firstly I wonder who’s going to say no, then I said as long as his hands work, we’re all good!) and then met up with Kate and Beck for a quick walk in the ocean (it was actually getting a bit cold by then, believe it or not, so Beck and I just went for a little walk up to knee depth).
Because of all the people in town, we figured we wouldn’t get a table anywhere in Victor for coffee and brunch, so we drove to Middleton, as Beck had to go back there anyway to get her stuff. Turned out that Middleton was packed (we got probably the last table in the cafe, and apparently not long after we left, they were turning people away for coffee – they were definitely not expecting the crowd that turned up!) as was Goolwa, a bit further up the road. Victor itself had only a few venues open – definitely a lost opportunity for some of the local businesses!
We ended up just having coffee due to a 45 minute wait for food, and then I got a ride home with Beck and DEMOLISHED the rest of my pizza!
It was a really well organised event in general, but I think the start times need a re-think, and I know a lot of people have provided this feedback. It wasn’t so much an issue for me, but for people further back in the field, there was a lot of congestion. I guess that’s the curse of having such a popular event!
Thanks again to all involved – volunteers, organisers and fellow participants!
And again, fingers crossed I remember to enter the 10k next year!
